The furore over Corbyn’s shadow cabinet choices is a right-wing media storm in a teacup, says BERNADETTE HORTON

THE whole world it seems has waded into a media-led frenzied lather over Jeremy Corbyn and the gender balance of his shadow cabinet.

Forget looking calmly and matter of factly at the stats, as soon as it is mentioned on Twitter or on the front page of the Daily Mail it has to be fact — “Jeremy Corbyn is a sexist Labour leader who thinks women should be in the kitchen and coincidentally he eats babies for breakfast!”

Maybe I went a little far above, but the storm and controversy surrounding the choosing of Corbyn’s first ever shadow cabinet was absolutely devoid of fact at all.

Jeremy was put up against the right-wing press wall and shot — something no doubt he will get used to over the next five years.

So we have 52 per cent of the JC shadow cabinet female, compared with 33 per cent in David Cameron’s current Tory Cabinet, and he had to reshuffle that to even get this amount after stinging criticism.

Angela Eagle is appointed as shadow business secretary and will deputise for Corbyn at PMQs on occasion.

The new shadow energy secretary is the inspirational Lisa Nandy, and Lucy Powell who had considerable experience as children’s minister under Ed Miliband is the new shadow education secretary. Talented women all.

Could Corbyn possibly have appointed people on talent and ability?

Why should Parliament not want the best person in the best possible role for their talents? …

So the whole furore is a right-wing media storm in a teacup, dreamt up by reporters like those at the Daily Mail who criticised Jeremy at the infamous war memorial service for “wearing a non-matching jacket and trousers.” Oh, the impudence of our Labour leader!

Come on, people. Let the right-wing press get carried away on their complete raft of downright lies on gender but let Labour members like us and our trade union comrades stand up and report the facts.

Working-class people who are coming back to the party in droves — 40,000-plus so far since last Saturday — want our party to look like the people who they represent.

Of course we want to see more female MPs in the party and of course we want to see them gain promotion to the shadow cabinet. But the bottom line is that they have. And I for one will be looking forward to seeing how the 16 women in the shadow cabinet shape our future party policies, but I will also be equally watching the 15 men too.

The former industrial journalist who served as Thatcher’s press secretary said Jeremy Corbyn’s “militant, Trotskyite dogs of war” would “sideline Labour as a political force.

“Mark my words, this man is dangerous for two reasons,” he wrote in the Yorkshire Post. “He apparently believes unswervingly in the healing power of socialism with its gloves off,” said Mr Ingham (pictured).

“And he looks ineffectual, the very epitome, stubbled, vested and fully equipped with cycle clips, of the minor middle-class revolutionaries to be found in junior common rooms.

“The truth is that Corbyn & Co are Marxist. While they pretend to represent the working man’s best interests, they want to keep him under their thumb.”

But Mr Beckett, who has written extensively about the Thatcher government, said Mr Corbyn’s forces were “rather less frightening than the dogs of war unleashed by Thatcher and Blair” in their military adventures abroad.

“It’s probably when he likes Labour leaders that the party should be worried — he thoroughly approved of Tony Blair, and worried dreadfully about how Labour might get on without him,” he told the Star.

“There’s something very odd about Mrs Thatcher’s aide complaining that another politician wants to keep the working man under his thumb. The whole tide of public policy from Thatcher to Blair had been to reduce the worker’s power to get out from under the boss’s thumb.”

LABOUR says it can boast the most gender-balanced top team in British political history after Jeremy Corbyn concluded his reshuffle, writes Luke James.

Mr Corbyn’s first shadow cabinet was criticised for not having more women in senior jobs, despite them outnumbering men for the first time.

Now women occupy 17 of the 31 shadow cabinet positions after Emily Thornberry was promoted to defence and Maria Eagle moved into the shadow culture brief after Michael Dugher’s sacking.

It means women make up 55 per cent of Labour’s leadership team, compared to 33 per cent of the Tory cabinet.

Shadow equalities minister Cat Smith said: “We are doing more than ever to improve representation, backed by a political plan to call time on Tory austerity measures which are hitting women three times harder than men.

“While the Conservatives like to wax lyrical about gender equality, Labour actually puts its money where its mouth is.”